A new energy-efficient MIMO-sensor network architecture M-SENMA

In this paper, we present a new large-scale low power sensor network architecture called MIMO-sensor networks with mobile agents (M-SENMAs), which select several neighboring sensor nodes to transmit information cooperatively and equip the mobile agents (MAs) with multiple receive-antennas. The M-SENMA system enables various space-time processing techniques and advanced detection algorithms. A comparison of M-SENMA with the flat MIMO sensor network architecture and sensor networks with mobile agents (SENMA) shows a substantial gain in the energy efficiency. Its upper and lower energy bounds under various antenna schemes and MA heights are discussed, which would help the future system design for sensor networks.